


Kiss of a Knife

by draculard



Category: Sweeney Todd (2007), Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Cannibalism, Ed Gein vibes, F/M, Ghost Sex, Haunting, Knifeplay, Lucy Barker is really dead, Mrs. Lovett is eminently practical after all, Turning People Into Pies, Turning other people into uhhh other things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: He appreciates the sting of the blade against his skin.
Relationships: Nellie Lovett/Sweeney Todd, Past Lucy Barker/Sweeney Todd
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Kiss of a Knife

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr, I'm draculard there too

His first night back on Fleet Street, he finds a dusty pillow stuffed inside Mrs. Lovett’s closet. The color has faded; the material is coarse and pilled where it once was smooth, but he recognizes it. Lucy made this, kept it next to her in her rocking chair while she was pregnant, held it to her stomach sometimes during the early days, before she started to show.

He picks it up, holds it to his nose. It smells like age and neglect. It doesn’t smell like her.

* * *

He sees her at night sometimes, feels invisible hands sneaking beneath his shirt. Her palms are cool against his skin, her touch so light he knows he must be imagining it. If he closes his eyes, lets himself slip back in time, he can almost picture her over him: her hair glowing in the moonlight from the window, her lips curled up in the softest smile, her eyes innocent and wicked at the same time.

He doesn’t sleep in his bed — their former bed. He sleeps in the chair, listens to the gears creak ominously beneath him every time he shifts. He jolts awake — sometimes to the sensation of falling, to the irrational certainty that his foot has struck the lever, that he’s slipping backward, and any moment now his skull will crack against the stones. But sometimes he jolts awake for different reasons.

Lucy’s ghost, touching him again. Running her fingers through his hair, kissing his temple where the white streak begins. Placing her old favorite pillow behind his head for comfort.

Or warm hands, solid hands, quick and harsh and full of friction. Nails that are a touch too long and ragged, that bite his skin as she caresses him, that dig into his still-soft cock as she reaches into his pants and strokes him to hardness. He doesn’t open his eyes then, either, doesn’t want to see Mrs. Lovett’s pupils blown wide, her cracked pale lips parted with desire, her chest flushed as she climbs on top of him.

It’s enough to feel her lips against his neck, soft and hot. Her nails raking down his chest, his stomach, leaving faint red lines everywhere she touches. She likes this; she likes to mix pleasure with pain, likes to balance it improperly so pain wins out. She doesn’t care if he comes, cares only about the smell and taste of him, the corpselike pallor of his face, the way he refuses to open his eyes.

He killed someone in this chair today. He can smell the thick copper scent of blood wafting through the floorboards; he can taste decay in Mrs. Lovett’s hair.

He leans in, kisses her back.

* * *

He appreciates the sting of the blade. Against his palm. Against his jaw. Drawing blood, watching his skin part, white flesh hesitating a moment before it wells up with red.

He presses the sharp end to his lips, lets it slice him thinly, like a papercut. Lays the flat of the blade against his cheekbone, beneath his eye. Imagines Lucy straddling him, her chest bare, her smile open and innocent.

Doesn’t fit.

Imagines Mrs. Lovett instead — and that’s better. He has no problem picturing Mrs. Lovett with a blade in her hand; sees nothing unnatural with the mental image of her drawing his own straight razor down his chest, his stomach, leaving a trail of blood that leads right to the base of his cock. There she hesitates, teasing him, watching him twitch and harden until his cock is stiff against his thigh. Until the blood is rushing there, bleeding freely, trickling down his thighs and sticking to the chair. To Lucy’s favorite pillow.

He closes his eyes, the straight razor in hand. He pictures Mrs. Lovett drawing it upward, cutting him open from the base of his cock to the head, blood flowing freely. Hears her quiet, excited breaths; feels the warmth of her against him.

Pulls the bloody blade upward for a kiss.

* * *

She gets rid of the bodies for him. She gives him his first taste of human flesh in the form of a kiss, pushes a fried piece of muscle, unidentifiable but human, into his mouth. For a moment he can’t tell what he’s supposed to bite into, the flesh or her tongue, can’t tell which is which. But he chooses correctly, takes it between his teeth, savors it and swallows.

Her eyes are on his, dark and approving. Nervous and thrilled.

He stares back at her like it’s a challenge.

* * *

And the thread on the pillow, whether he likes it or not, is wearing thin. He picks at it mindlessly when he can’t sleep; sits in his chair where he kills innocent people, plucks at the thread with restless fingers, does anything he can to keep his mind off his razors and the delicious sting of a blade against his skin.

He doesn’t notice he’s ruined it until he feels the brush of something soft against his hand. He looks down, sees that he’s plucked out an entire line of thread, left one end of the pillow gaping open. The stuffing peaks out at him, looks almost golden in the moonlight.

He remembers what Lucy stuffed it with. It wasn’t golden; it was feathers, brown and dull and unremarkable. He touches it, feels something familiar, something that stirs his heart and sets it thudding in his chest. The pillow has been altered since he left, since Lucy died. Someone has taken all the feathers out and stitched it up again, hidden the pillow in the closet for years after the fact.

He thinks of his razor blade slicing into unsuspecting throats. He thinks of Mrs. Lovett lifting bodies into the meat grinder, turning men into food. Always resourceful.

He takes a deep breath, keeps his eyes on his straight razor, not on Lucy’s favorite pillow, and pushes the tufts of yellow hair back inside.


End file.
